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> They are the ones who give us clean water, Scientist discovered what makes water "clean" but it was activists and politicians that gave it to all. Many of wh

> They are the ones who give us clean water, Scientist discovered what makes water "clean" but it was activists and politicians that gave it to all. Many of whom you probably would not want to idolize today. The inadequacy of science to save us is evidenced by the fact that to this day there are places where, despite the availability of the technology, people suffer with undrinkable water. "The Rise and Fall of American Growth" has this really interesting observation that makes this more pointed to me. It is that most of the gains in human life expectancy are attributable to public health initiatives. I can't remember exactly how the numbers break down but it's something like 70-80% of life expectancy increase happened between 1890 and 1940. During these years public health projects expanded across the country whilst medicine was still quite a crap shoot. It's so compatible with American culture that we make achievements like this about individual geniuses inventing life giving technology. When in reality the life giving came from popular mass movements and the individuals involved mostly counted as people who could understand and apply that popular will to institutions that often ignored the populus.

Jensson 4y ago
Then we can blame the bad things as well? Dietary science improves! -> Companies puts stuff in food to make people eat more and get fatter than ever before! Psychology science improves! -> Companies get better at designing ads and manipulating groups of people into self destructive behavior than ever before! Or yeah, I guess that makes sense. Science can be used for bad or good, we need to regulate away the bad cases and then science is mostly good.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  To me, science can be a tool to achieve a moral end. Science can even clarify moral positions. For example, the revelations of neuroscience strongly support a moral position of humility. But in the end, our morals have to come from somewhere else. I really hated during the pandemic how people moralized the science. I don't mean to say the science was ambiguous. It largely was not. But the, "I believe science" memes were a deceptive appeal to find morality somewhere we shouldn't. The moral position for wearing masks was not dependent on the certainty that they work. It depended on a willingness to subdue one's own will for the good of all. I'm not saying that across the board the collective is the higher moral obligation. Collective vs. individual is a moral area that must be carefully weighed. For me, the clarifying question when suborning one's will to the collective is, "what if they are wrong vs what if I am wrong". In the case of mask wearing, if they were wrong, there's relatively little harm. 24 months of off and on, minor discomfort. That is something for which, when weighed against the advice of experts is worth submitting over.

Jensson 4y ago

Then we can blame the bad things as well? Dietary science improves! -> Companies puts stuff in food to make people eat more and get fatter than ever before! Psychology science improves! -> Companies get better at designing ads and manipulating groups of people into self destructive behavior than ever before! Or yeah, I guess that makes sense. Science can be used for bad or good, we need to regulate away the bad cases and then science is mostly good.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
To me, science can be a tool to achieve a moral end. Science can even clarify moral positions. For example, the revelations of neuroscience strongly support a moral position of humility. But in the end, our morals have to come from somewhere else. I really hated during the pandemic how people moralized the science. I don't mean to say the science was ambiguous. It largely was not. But the, "I believe science" memes were a deceptive appeal to find morality somewhere we shouldn't. The moral position for wearing masks was not dependent on the certainty that they work. It depended on a willingness to subdue one's own will for the good of all. I'm not saying that across the board the collective is the higher moral obligation. Collective vs. individual is a moral area that must be carefully weighed. For me, the clarifying question when suborning one's will to the collective is, "what if they are wrong vs what if I am wrong". In the case of mask wearing, if they were wrong, there's relatively little harm. 24 months of off and on, minor discomfort. That is something for which, when weighed against the advice of experts is worth submitting over.